Conventional backplane systems, such as industrial programmable logic controllers (PLC), have connectors to transmit power to the line cards. They also have expensive connectors to transmit data from card to card in a daisy chain type fashion. High speed connectors are costly, and they may have reliability issues associated with corrosion, intermittent operation, fluid contamination and wearing out.
Near Field Communication (NFC) is a wireless technology, allowing two devices to communicate over a short distance of approximately 10 cm or less. Various protocols using NFC have been standardized internationally within NFC Forum specifications and defined in ISO/IEC 18092, ECMA-340 and ISO 14443, for example. NFC allows a mobile device to interact with a subscriber's immediate environment. Contactless systems are commonly used as access control IDs (e.g. employee badges), and as payment systems for public transportation etc. Also, many credit cards include NFC capability.